Valentin Naboth

Valentin Naboth (also spelled Valentine Naibod or Nabod) (13 February 1523 – 3 March 1593), known by the latinized name Valentinus Nabodus, was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer.

Valentin Naboth was born in Calau (Niederlausitz) to an originally Jewish family. He was the younger brother of the Lutheran theologian and author Alexius Naboth. In 1544, Valentin immatriculated at the University of Wittenberg, at the time Philipp Melanchthon, Erasmus Reinhold, Johannes Bugenhagen, Paul Eber, and Georg Major taught there. In 1550 he transferred to the University of Erfurt.

Valentin Naboth was Baccalaurean when he came from Wittenberg to Erfurt, and had certainly an outstanding mathematical ability. The Faculty council took on the risk to turn the courses in Mathematics over to this gifted but troubled Renaissance spirit even though he had not yet a Magister degree. That decision was made at the meeting of 16 August 1551, and from then on Naboth taught Mathematics and Sphaera materialis. He also taught in the summer semester and winter semester of 1552. There was a plague epidemic, and the courses were shortened; Liborius Mangold taught only rhetoric and Naboth Sphaera. The conscientious Liborius Mangold from Warburg, who was Dean, did not seem to get along with the much favored mathematician Naboth, and when the latter even borrowed money from the University for the Magister's examination, Liborius wrote to the Dean's book, "quod prius nunquam nec visum nec auditum fuit". Valentin Naboth passed the examination. But right after he had his Magister’s degree, he wrote on February 6 a letter to the Faculty about which the Dean remarked that a letter in such a tone had never been seen or heard of before. Maybe it was one of the reasons why Liborius Mangold gave up after twelve years as rector of St. Georgsburse and a professor of physics and rhetoric, and accepted an administrative position in his native town of Warburg. But not only he left. Without saying a word Valentin Naboth went as well. The faculty waited in vain for him for the summer semester 1553, he didn’t come. The Faculty was still hoping for Naboth’s return and waited some more before replacing him. But Naboth had gone to the University of Cologne and matriculated there with the intention to teach mathematics at this major University – which he succeeded to do. Naboth remained in Cologne for a decade, but then this restless spirit couldn’t stay any longer, he moved on to the center of the mathematical studies of that time, at the University of Padua, and taught and wrote there. He had always been an eccentric, and became even more so over there.

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